Flower Drum Song revival - should it happen

thoughts

It's a marvelous score and one of the very few works in musical theatre that allow performers of Asian descent to portray characters written specifically for them.

But the original is pretty much the epitome of problematically dated, and Hwang's revisal is just not very good at all.

I would love to see this but keeping the original book intact and honoring the now-un-PC aspects of the musical. Keeping the original setting and keeping it as a time-capsule of the era it was written (1958). Sher at the helm, of course. Only he seems to understand how to re-interpret and honor older musicals without completely modifying them.

The original Flower Drum Song was fine - nothing wrong with it except people's inabilities to understand context. It was adapted from a novel by a Chinese person. Every time someone tells me a show would not go over well today it just makes me want to do it to prove them wrong.

Flower Drum Song was my first Broadway experience, too. And I remember it with great admiration - for a cast that included Juanita Hall, Ed Kenney, Keye Luke, Pat Suzuki (of course!), and Jack Soo. I have pulled out the now yellowed PLAYBILL, and there in the dancing ensemble are Baayork Lee and Finis Jhung. The music was lovely, lively, touching. I still think LOVE LOOK AWAY is one of the best and most noble expressions of unrequited love in American musicals. The nightclub scenes were tacky but so are the KitKat Club scenes in CABARET and the HOTBOX scenes in GUYS and DOLLS.

After all this time, I don't remember much about the book of this musical in detail, but can someone please explain to me - without shouting or casting aspersions - what the particular issues are with this musical? The novel was written by C. Y. Lee, and I thought at the time (I was still in grade school!) that there was a lot of truth to the generational differences and the tension between "modern" life and cultural traditions. I am a part time ESL teacher with students from virtually everywhere in the world, including Asians, and they seem to be dealing with the same issues now. I do recognize that the term "wetback" is offensive but it can certainly be worked around. I am trying to understand how it is viewed now.



ETA: correction of nightclub references - I seem to have dropped a line somewhere...

Updated On: 3/20/18 at 04:33 PM

Just from my perspective, some of the "jokes" like the Aunt's grocery order which is played for laughs and the father character may tread the line from portraying an old-school Chinese father to being a caricature poking fun of what non-Asian-Americans thought of bumbling Chinese people. There's also some things with the music that kind of sound silly. However, I think at the time, there was a lot more of a movement from Asian-Americans who were sort of tired of the orientalism and being shown as exotic which FDS is sort of guilty of in parts. Some parts of the story can be seen as how adopting the American way of living is superior to that of the Chinese way. Was there that unneeded bank scene from the film in the original Broadway version?

However, now, I can see people being more open and less afraid of being portrayed as an immigrant culture still holding on to some of the old ways while also figuring out how to balance that with being American (especially the younger characters). I think any racially-based criticism of the work is going to be more sophisticated and about how it perpetuates stereotypical views of Asian women and the whole butterfly/dragon lady dichotomy as exhibited by the Mei Li/Linda Low dynamic. However, Linda Low isn't a total dragon lady and seems to really love Sammy.

I actually don't find this work to be THAT problematic in that there's clearly a respect from Rodgers/Hammerstein and I really appreciated the film version for showing Chinatown as it could have been with everybody including almost all of the extras being Asian...including in the beginning with that cop who has no trace of accent and is confused by Mei Li and her dad and Mei Li calling the Chinese food she's eating at Sammy Fong's "American cooking". I think I need to talk to more of my peers about it, but I don't mind the exoticism so much because there are a lot of people who really have never seen a place like Chinatown in the United States. I wouldn't mind having that be exposed as it really is.

I also want to say a reaction from someone whose parents immigrated to the United States (like me) or they themselves immigrated may be different than those who are like 4th-6th, etc. generation Japanese/Chinese-American. One may be more accepting at focusing on how "different" these Asians are from other Americans while the other may not like it as much.

Updated On: 3/20/18 at 04:49 PM

If they were to revive it, I also would prefer that they adopt the film's story structure and song order.

As someone who is of Chinese descent and the grandson of Chinese immigrants, I find the original book much less offensive then the new version. Obviously, jokes need to be altered here and there and some of the characters need to be more fully developed beyond caricatures (mostly the father). But overall, the story is pretty good representation of the what my mother went through being first generation born Chinese in America and the culture clash with her parents. Meanwhile, the updated version is very stereotypical in such a different way that I find worse: dancing take out boxes, Club Chop Suey? Ugh, I would like to think my ethnicity on Broadway would go beyond a Chinese restaurant menu.

Updated On: 3/20/18 at 08:19 PM